Burlington City Arts curator wants to share passion for art and education

New BCA Center curator immersed in contemporary art

Aug. 30, 2012

DJ Hellerman started as the new curator for the Burlington City Arts Center on Aug. 1. Hellerman, 27, replaces Chris Thompson who left the BCA Center to enroll in a master of fine arts program. / ELLIOT deBRUYN/Free Press

The most meaningful art lesson of DJ Hellerman’s life came from an unlikely source: the Progressive insurance company.

He spent several years with the Ohio-based business, helping to build its massive contemporary-art collection. Hellerman said the private collection for the company’s 25,000 employees is scattered in about 300 buildings across the country. Progressive’s art holdings include roughly 8,000 objects, he said, and he and his co-workers spent their time acquiring 200 to 300 new contemporary-art pieces annually, something only the most aggressive collectors do.

“I was getting the pulse of contemporary art for six years,” Hellerman said over coffee this month at Muddy Waters in Burlington. “That was a ridiculous exposure to what’s happening.”

His new job will also have him keeping tabs on what’s happening in contemporary art. Hellerman started Aug. 1 as the curator at the BCA Center, the flagship gallery of Burlington City Arts. The BCA Center’s location on the Church Street Marketplace makes it the most visible venue for contemporary art in Vermont’s largest city, which by extension arguably makes it the state’s most visible venue for contemporary art. Hellerman, 27, replaces Chris Thompson, who left BCA to enroll in a master of fine arts program at Champlain College.

Hellerman grew up in the small community of Painesville, Ohio, about an hour outside of Cleveland, and the BCA job represents his first substantial time away from his home state. He has a few ties to Vermont, however; he’s friends with employees at the Fleming Museum and Shelburne Museum, and said he has come to the Champlain Valley Fair for the past five years or so to set up art displays for Progressive, presenter of the Essex Junction event that’s running through Labor Day.

Hellerman pursued his interest in art at two Ohio schools — Lake Erie College, where he did his undergraduate studies, and Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his master’s degree in art. This all happened despite the fact that art is not in his bloodlines.

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“I was raised in a family that didn’t really engage with art or culture in any intense way,” Hellerman said. But he comes from a compassionate family, he said, which taps into an artistic sensibility even if the appreciation for art isn’t there.

“I like the community around (art),” Hellerman said. “I really like that way of communicating thoughts and reality and perceptions of reality.”

Hellerman has taught classes at Lake Erie College and is also an instructor in Pilates and cycling who has led art-themed bike tours. He likes educating people about art, and his new boss said that’s one of his strengths.

“He’s really uniquely suited for this position, not only in terms of his curatorial prowess but how he values the educational role he will also have in the community,” said Doreen Kraft, executive director of Burlington City Arts.

“Contemporary art and contemporary ideas are sometimes difficult,” according to Kraft. She said Hellerman’s job at Progressive was built around education; art displays on themes such as diversity were meant to speak to everyone in the company, from the janitor to the CEO, and to teach employees principles the company believes in.

“His eyes light up” when talking about art and education, Kraft said of Hellerman. “That’s his passion.”

Hellerman said he doesn’t have an agenda when it comes to art, at least not in terms of genres or styles. He does want to install art at the BCA Center that gets people talking.

“It’s not about art that is in storage,” Hellerman said. “I like art that is inherently emotional.”

Hellerman’s artistic taste isn’t likely to make itself known until early 2013 at the BCA Center, which has already programmed its exhibits through 2012. He expects he will be drawn to art that combats the era of instantaneous and often simplistic information and provokes thought in its viewers.

“I hope that what I’m bringing in is not a one-liner,” Hellerman said. “Quick reads I’m not interested in. To let something open up over time, that’s interesting.”

He plans to help patrons of the BCA Center engage with the art he brings there. “I’m not going to be a curator holed up in the basement and not accessible,” he said, adding that he’ll be an active curator “only to let the art talk.”